


Hidden Inside

by evening_spirit



Series: Dark 'verse [2]
Category: The Gifted (TV 2017)
Genre: Anger Management, Canonical Character Death, Female Friendship, Friendship, Gen, Grief, Male Friendship, Set between 1x10 and 1x11, background eclaris, because John is bi and you can fight me, but she's awesome, clarice has issues too, hint of past ThunderPulse, john has issues alright?, oh and Clarice is bi too obviously, post 1x10 (eXploited), pre-Thunderblink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-10
Updated: 2018-07-16
Packaged: 2019-03-03 02:37:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13331712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evening_spirit/pseuds/evening_spirit
Summary: No one gave John a hug when he needed it the most. That's because they're afraid of him. He is Thunderbird after all. A character study on how John reacted to the news of Sonia's death.(Turns out the story needed more than one chapter to be told...)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> When we first meet John and Clarice, he's the one who's strong and she is… well she's not weak, Clarice is never weak, but she's vulnerable. Over the course of the first season we discover more and more of Clarice’s strength and John's vulnerability. 
> 
> This reveal of their respective "other sides" is something I wanted to explore within this fic. The hidden sides of the two of them.

_Don't kiss me if you're afraid of thunder. My life is a storm.  
_ **~Anita Krizzan**

* * *

He must contain his anguish. He can't let his emotions run rampant. He used to. Before. He would get angry, or upset, or even overly excited and people had paid for it. People he cared about. John swore he wouldn't be the cause of someone else's suffering ever again. He's kept to his word.

Why can't he now?

"I'm sorry," Clarice whispered, her eyes brighter than ever, laser-green, searing to the very core of his soul, a burning scar left in the wake of this gaze.

John was looking at the group of rescued mutants, still cuddled together, his eyes jumping from face to face in search of those coppery waves and he couldn’t see them anywhere and Clarice came to the forefront and whispered, "I'm sorry."

The telepathic Triplets had vanished before the team even got to the gates. Sentinel soldiers lie around, incapacitated – killed mostly. Trask people are coming, but still at some distance. Nevertheless, the mutants have to hurry, they have to get away from here, they have to run.

But John searched for Sonia's sad face and Clarice saw that and she probably thought she owed him an explanation.

"I wish I could have done something."

She couldn't.

She can't.

The emptiness in his stomach, the vacuum that opened after he heard those words and didn't want to understand their implication, now turns to fire, along with the realization that she's not here. Sonia is not here and she never will be. She's not coming back from that building, she's gone, she's...

The Strucker girl says something but John doesn't hear anything beside bitterness and self loathing and he doesn't even know if it's hers or his own. His body becomes a stone, then lava. His vision shrinks into a tunnel, like looking through the tube of a reverse telescope. Far, far at the end of that tube he sees – Clarice. She reaches out to touch him.

He takes a hasty step back.

"Stay away!" he chokes and her face curls inward, like he slapped her.

Like he blames her for what happened but he doesn't, it's nothing like that!

How is he supposed to explain it to her? How? His throat is constricted to the point of physical pain, his fists balled with the overwhelming desire to punch and hit and tear the world into shreds. He can barely contain it, much less speak up. With the last simmer of control that he still holds onto somewhere deep inside, he only shakes his head and takes another step back.

He collides with something.

Someone.

“We gotta move!” Marcos hisses right into his ear, meets his eyes and jumps away, all in a split second. His eyes are wide, hands alight. He recognizes the warning.

“Where is Sonia?” Lorna asks almost simultaneously.

“We have to go,” Marcos repeats barely above the whisper, not taking his eyes off John for even a blink. He pulls Lorna behind him, puts himself between John and the rest of the group they’ve just liberated. “We shouldn't fight now,” he pleads, “not like this.”

Lorna sees the danger just as Marcos does. She ushers the band of escapees through the broken fence and up the slope toward their parked cars, turning back to check on the situation every few heartbeats. Marcos follows behind her, walks backwards, his eyes still on John. Shatter flanks their retreat.

Do they want to tame John, fight him maybe? Thunderbird? Do they think they can protect anyone from him?

They can't.

Eclipse’s photon beam will cause him pain, but no real harm, while Shatter's crystalline skin can only protect the man so far. Thunderbird could rip him to pieces if he took to it.

He is the ultimate war machine. He's strong, resilient, durable. He has the ability to hide from the enemy forces, or sneak up on them undetected. He has the training to match his physical strength when in direct confrontation. He's fast.

But it's neither of those abilities that made the X-men believe they could trust him with managing the mutant underground. No, it's something else. It's something that didn't come by itself, awoken by a mutation; quite on the contrary. It is a trait that John had to work on for a very long time, he had to struggle to find the strength in him and to keep it. Perfect it. Make it his way of life. It is his ability to control all his X-gene imposed gifts – it is his discipline.

No one can tame Thunderbird, but Thunderbird himself.

His heart is still racing, his muscles still tense, but his mind is back in the right place. His vision returns to normal, he can hear the boots approaching, orders to take position being issued. Marcos and Shatter are up the slope, almost under the cover of trees, John is in front of the fence.

He breathes in, closes his eyes and tenses all muscles in his face, pulls his chin to his chests, then on a count to three, he exhales and relaxes them, repeats the same with his shoulders, hands, torso, and finally legs. Doesn't have the time for a deeper meditation – Trask security is about to open fire, good thing he's bulletproof – but he's so familiar with those movements by now, his body simply obeys.

As the bullets start flying around him, John squeezes through the torn fence and dashes up and between the trees. On the other side he's greeted by Marcos and Shatter.

"I'm good." He lifts both his palms in a placating gesture.

"You're not driving," Marcos says and John nods.

When he opens the door on the passenger side, though, it breaks off at the hinges.


	2. Chapter 2

It wasn’t her fault.

Clarice is hurting, everything is wrong with the world, but one thing is certain – Campbell pulled the trigger, not her. Nothing she had done would have changed the outcome. Lauren and Andy weren’t at fault either, no matter how guilty Lauren feels about it. Clarice spends most of the drive back to the Headquarters holding Lauren’s hand and looking into the girl’s blue, abysmally sad eyes.

As they go through the gate, Lauren finally turns to look at her.

“Do you think they blame us?” The question is barely audible, not even Andy seems to hear, much less Lorna, who’s driving the SUV. Clarice can see her profile from where she sits, the hard set of her lips, rapid blinking every now and again. Hands tight on the wheel.

Sonia was her best friend.

But it's not Lorna that Lauren has in mind and Clarice knows it.

“John?” she mouths.

Lauren shuts her eyes in something that's not quite a confirmation; more likely an attempt to stop the tears. Except she has no more to shed – just like Clarice, she’s already cried them all out.

Clarice squeezes Lauren’s palm harder, presses her other hand against Lauren’s wrist.

“He had no right,” she whispers, but she might as well shout it out, there’s so much passion inside her now.

John’s words, “Stay away from me,” his whole posture come to the forefront in her mind and she has to push air past the lump in her throat. How could he say something like that? How could he think that?

It was not her fault that Sonia was gone.

The SUV pulls in front of the stairs and Shatter gets out first – he hoards the refugees who are new to the Headquarters, gives Clarice, Lauren and Andy a questioning look. Clarice pushes the siblings to go with him, then turns to the other car that has just now parked next to theirs.

The door on the passenger side are gone, she notices with surprise and dread. John steps out, casts a glance at Lorna – his eyes are dark, so dark – then turns and walks up the stairs, two at a time, undisturbed by anyone.

Clarice can't let it go that easily. She's never been one to wait for the situation to resolve itself. She's learned a long time ago that direct confrontation has better effects than pretending nothing happened. Just like she challenged John about Sonia's interference with her memories, so she's going to deal with him insulting her just now.

She's halfway caught up with him when a hand grips her elbow. She spins on her heel.

"Don't." Marcos shakes his head, his eyes pleading. "Don't go after him."

"Oh?" Clarice pulls her hand free with force. "Why? Because he doesn't want to have anything to do with me?" she mocks. Marcos' brow furrows, but she doesn't let him cut in. "Because I'm some awful monster who got his friend killed?"

"What?" Marcos looks sincerely dumbfounded.

"Clarice--" Lorna, right next to him, shakes her head. She looks on edge.

But so is Clarice. "Why then did he tell me to not come near him?" She throws her arms up. "Am I disgusting, or what?"

They are both silent for a beat; look at each other. Lorna's eyes brim with tears, Marcos reaches out to touch her, then turns to Clarice again, exasperated. He wants to be there for Lorna, he wants to comfort his girlfriend, Clarice can tell, but at the same time he feels obliged to stop her from going after John. For whatever reason – Clarice can't guess.

And then he tells her something that doesn't explain anything at all.

"He told you to stay away for your own safety."

"My-- safety?"

"Yes. He's-- He's upset and when he's upset, he can't always control his-- strength." Marcos talks to her but he keeps looking to the side, at Lorna. Lorna doesn't talk. She's folded her arms on her chest and she stares at her feet. She's intent on kicking out dirt from the crack in the step. Marcos sighs. "Give him time, okay?" he reiterates. "Please? Let him process it and once he does, he'll be back to his old self."

"Oh, just get over yourself, Clarice." Lorna loses her patience. "This has nothing to do with you. Let the man grieve; he's just lost his girlfriend."

Clarice opens her mouth, but one look at Marcos shaking his head makes her close them right back. Just let it go, Clarice, his eyes seem to speak.

Just let him take care of two of his friends who just learned that someone they deeply cared about had died.

Maybe he's right. Maybe they are both right and she's being self-centered. She nods and turns around, climbs the rest of the stairs. Once inside, she can't find John anywhere and maybe it's for the better. It's late anyway.

She doesn't see him until next morning. Not because she sleeps – at the moment she doubts she’ll ever sleep again; not many people at HQ do tonight. Clarice hangs around near the Struckers' quarters not sure what she's waiting for. Or rather what exactly she wants from Lauren, because it's her she expects to see eventually. Lauren sneaks out when tall windows on the upper floor begin to turn gray.

“Wasn't sure you'd be here,” she says. They didn't arrange to meet or anything, just… they both apparently expected it. Lauren is kind of gorgeous with her hair in disarray and pink cheeks, Clarice realizes with surprise. But then the girl reminds Clarice she's still a teen. “My mom only just fell asleep," she sighs as she slumps next to Clarice.

Right. Besides she didn't really expect  _ this _ from Lauren.  _ This _ being physical intimacy. She doesn't even know if the girl isn't a hundred percent straight, for crying out loud. That momentary attraction appeared out of nowhere, must be all the trauma speaking.

Clarice puts her arm around Lauren's and Lauren rests her head in the nook of Clarice's shoulder.

They don't talk – they do not need to. The presence of the other is enough, it speaks volumes about acceptance and understanding deeper than between anyone in the HQ. The experience of the last couple of days was theirs, they shared it. In a way at least; Lauren was the one who refused to do what the crazy doctor ordered, while Clarice was the one who didn't say anything when Sonia told the Struckers not to listen to him. If she was the one who spoke, she'd be dead now and damn it, she really is happy to be alive. Then again, if Lauren kept refusing, she wouldn't be.

Too many what-ifs.

Lauren's presence brings Clarice comfort. She can only hope that her being here, by Lauren's side, brings comfort to the younger girl as well.

When raised voices from the Ops reach them and Lauren lifts her head from Clarice's shoulder, she confirms that it has, indeed. "Thank you," she says and wraps her arms around Clarice again. "Thank you for not hating me," she whispers into Clarice's ear.

"I could never," Clarice whispers back, hugging Lauren close. Then she pushes her away, but holds her face in both her hands as she looks her straight in the eyes. "You are the most courageous person I know. You'll fight it, you'll fight them and I will fight right beside you."

Lauren only nods, too overwhelmed to speak.

They go side by side to join the others in the room with all the screens. Sage is in the middle of relating what she heard on the scanners overnight. What the police and Sentinel Services have been saying about the attack at Trask. The mutants are terrorists and they are dangerous and it's more or less just what they always feared would happen, if they ever attacked humans. Marcos is angry, Lorna is upset, but she doesn't condemn the Mad Triplets – that's what Clarice now calls them in her head – as outwardly as Marcos does. She's mourning her best friend and some part of her seems glad that they got at least partial revenge. She never says it out loud, but her, "It was a disaster," is half-hearted and gives even Marcos a pause.

"It was a total disaster," he emphasizes.

One of the mutants rescued from the prison says the three telepaths saved their lives and the others immediately voice their support. Clarice can't quite disagree, but she chooses to remain silent. People talk over each other. Marcos yells at them to stop saying nonsense like that and the argument erupts with force.

It doesn't reach deafening levels, though, before a booming voice rises over the tumult.

"That's enough!"

It's John. Clarice hasn't noticed him before. He stands behind Sage, in the corner of the room and there's a five-foot radius of empty space around him, like he's a carrier of some contagious disease. Like all the mutants know that no one is allowed to get near him. Now those at the edge of the circle try to move even further away, blend with the rest of the crowd.

He glares.

"This is not how we're gonna do it. Arguing. This is playing right into their hands. We have to--" he hesitates. Clarice has never seen him hesitate like this before, not in front of a larger group of people. He's the confident leader and people do what he tells them to do, because he doesn't have doubts.

Now he does.

"We have to stick together," he finishes, but it's just a slogan and uncertainty is evident in his voice. "This meeting is over."

The Ops room empties. Marcos stays behind, nears John, but doesn't cross the arm's reach distance. They talk in hushed voices, Sage and Shatter completing the circle. Lorna's nowhere to be seen. Clarice can see impatience on John's face, agitation, ferocity. Exhaustion. He probably didn’t sleep all night either, but she doubts he had a friendly shoulder to lean on, the way Clarice had. Not with how everyone is careful not to get near him.

He's careful too. Clarice catches glimpses of him for the rest of the day as he moves around the Headquarters, speaking with that person or another. He gets calmer over time, outwardly composed, but she senses ire right under the quiet demeanor. Whenever someone gets too near or, heaven forbid, touches him, he freezes. Then, very gently and very slowly removes himself from contact. Apologizes, if the person gets flustered of uncomfortable. How much does it cost him, Clarice wonders, to be exposed to so many people depending on him for pretty much everything.

All of it rubs Clarice the wrong way. She's long past feeling hurt by his curt, "Stay away." Oh, of course, contrary to what Lorna said, she thinks she had every right to take it to heart – at the time. She had been there, damn it, three feet from where Campbell shot Sonia. She's still reeling and that's a fact. But she has begun to cope. Spending half the night with Lauren at her side played a crucial role in it and Clarice feels stronger for it now.

She wants to share this strength with John, somehow, but she doesn't know if her attempt would be welcome. It's not like they are exactly friends.

"Clarice?" Marcos pulls her from her reverie. "How are you holding up?"

"Me?" She's startled by his concern. She searches for John's figure at the overpass, but he's not where he was just a moment ago. "I'll be alright," she tells Marcos.

"You've been through hell and I haven't exactly been forthcoming yesterday. It's just that Lorna--"

"I get it. She's your first priority." He gives her a nod and a lopsided smile. "It's okay. I was a little miffed by her comment, but--"

"Yeah. I wanted to apologize for that too, on her behalf."

Clarice shakes her head and lets out a mirthless chuckle. "If she feels like apologizing, she may do it herself."

"She's, uh--" Marcos scratches the back of his neck and Clarice puts a hand on his arm before he can say anything more.

"Don't worry. I understand grief and I won't hold a grudge, I promise."

Marcos sighs, visibly relieved.

"What about John, though?" Clarice decides to breach that subject.

"What about him?"

"How does he handle all this? Have you talked to him?"

"He's tough. Tougher than all of us combined. You've seen him, he's already got all the issues here covered. Better than I would."

Clarice shakes her head. "Everyone is still avoiding any kind of physical contact with him. I don't think that's--" she searches for the right word and, "beneficial," comes to mind.

Marcos scratches his hair and it sticks out on one side.

"Look," he says, "it’s not the first time. We've been through our fair share of loss before. You know that John and Gus-- Pulse--" Marcos sighs, furrows his brow, watches Clarice for a beat. "They were--" he hesitates, goes for-- "friends. Best friends." Clarice hears  _ more than friends _ underneath and it makes her feel strange yet compelling warmth inside. More familiarity than she could believe there was between her and John. Marcos sighs. "This is how it has to be," he states. "For everybody's benefit."

"Because he's dangerous."

Marcos nods.

“That’s what he told you,” Clarice supposes.

“Clarice…” Marcos thinks he knows best and Clarice isn’t going to argue with him about that. She agrees to keep her distance just like everybody else, even if she thoroughly detests the notion.

"There's something else I wanted to talk to you about." Marcos calls her attention one more time. "We're going to have a small ceremony in Sonia's honor tomorrow at dawn." He meets Clarice's eyes and feels the need to explain. "We don't really do funerals – it's not like we have bodies most of the time. But we need to say goodbye all the same. We gather together, make bouquets of wildflowers and place them on a dais. There may be some tribute, Lorna will want to say something I'm sure."

"Tomorrow?" Clarice asks for verification.

"At dawn." Marcos confirms.

She hopes John will be better by then.


	3. Chapter 3

Words, words, words. Marcos speaks for all of them but John doesn’t really listen. Marcos asked, earlier, if John wanted to say anything, but John declined.

That’s the deal with them anyway, he’s the one coming up with a plan, Marcos rallies people up to make it work and Lorna leads them to execute that plan.

Not that they need a plan now; it’s just a funeral.

No, not even that.

A memorial.

John stands at the back. The others are bundled up in pairs or groups, but not him. He cannot. He wants to hold onto someone but the only person he could hold, without fearing to crush him, had been gone for years. He had been alive, but they didn’t know that and now he’s gone for real. The only person who could take his pain away is gone too. Not that he ever let her. He was always mad when she tried, he wanted to keep all his memories. But at least she could help him sleep without nightmares.

It was all selfish, John was selfish with both Gus and Sonia, he realizes that, but it doesn’t make the pain of losing them any less jarring. If anything it makes his guilt stronger. He should have tried harder, should have…

The congregation begins to disperse, the mutants walking slowly back to the HQ. In pairs or in groups. John stays until the last one of them has disappeared behind the shrubs. He walks to the dais. He places his bouquet on top of it -- his palm became all sweaty from clutching it and the roots of the plants are thin and withered. He wonders what he could say to Sonia and only comes up with an apology, so he thinks -- he doesn’t even speak out loud -- he thinks, "I’m sorry" and follows everybody else down the aisle between the greenery.

He’s sorry. For what exactly? For not being there sooner? She’d been gone for at least a day, he thinks, when they came with the rescue. He’d have to ask Lauren or Andy or Clarice; he’d only heard the most general facts. He should have been a lot sooner if he wanted to save Sonia and he knows there were other circumstances standing in his way, the logistics, the planning, it just couldn’t be done any better than they did it. They did their best and that is a fact. Why then? Why is he sorry? Because he pushed her away? Because hers feels so much like a sacrifice of a broken heart? No, he can’t think that way, that’s him being selfish again, making it all about him. Sonia, if she really sacrificed herself, did it because of something she believed in. He has to give her credit for that. She fought, because she believed. She fell in love with John, because she believed and he believed as well. She wanted to help people of her kind. She wanted to grant safety to as many as they could. And if the only way to do it was by sacrificing herself, then that’s what she chose to do. Because she was a true hero.

John misses her. He knows he misses her, but he doesn't really grieve for her like she deserves. Maybe that's what he's sorry for, that's why he feels this selfish guilt? Can he really grieve though, can he allow himself this... The Underground needs a strong leader. That's obvious and everybody understands it, so that's the reason he would give, if anyone asked. That's something he repeats to himself over and over again. Deep inside, however... Deep inside he knows that is not all.

Deep inside he knows it's as simple as fear. Dread. Terror of emotions associated with grief. Hollowness. Despair. Dark, tumultuous maelstrom that sucks the very breath from his lungs. Even standing at the edge of it feels like an earthquake. His throat constricted, John stops, looks up at the HQ. He can’t keep it in, he knows he can’t keep it all in, but he can’t let their people see him like this either. He’s their leader, he’s supposed to be the strongest of them all, but he can’t, he can’t… A sob almost escapes him, the urge to cry out and he feels wetness on his cheeks.

Loss.

She's gone.

There's so much he hadn't... he should have...

Sonia.

He misses her terribly but that's no good anymore, that's not gonna help anyone anymore and he can't feel this, he can't be like this, he must contain it. He holds his palm to his face and in this palm he holds all that anguish that he has to hide from the world.

Then he takes in a breath and schools his features.

The Underground needs a strong leader.

He turns, his resolve as steadfast as he can feasibly make it and he sees a shape on the stairs. A person. A glimpse of purple hair.

Clarice.

Of course, he couldn't be so lucky.

Although. Clarice is different than most mutants in the Headquarters. Not because of what he (doesn’t, he doesn’t!) feel for her. She’s the kind of person who isn’t easily intimidated. If at all. She knows what she wants and she’s taking it without waiting for the world to hand it over. She takes no bullshit. John doesn’t know all that she’s been through, but it both hardened her and made her more compassionate, more caring. In a wise way. She will not let herself get hurt, no matter what. That is good. That is what makes him not fear for her safety as much.

He’s not going to show her his weakness though, either. That’s just not something he can do.

Hands in his pockets, John climbs the stairs to stand before her and waits for an inevitable, "How are you?"

"I’m alright," he tries but his voice fails him. Sounds hoarse, unused. Not alright at all. Clarice says something about how Sonia was important to John and loved him and she tries, John knows she wants to console him – probably the only one who actually does, he realizes.

"If there's anything you need," she offers, "just say the word. I wanna help."

He owes her at least an acknowledgment. So, "Things are so--" he starts and swallows, his throat still too dry for words. Then, "confused in there." The truth is he is confused, he cannot decide. "This whole business with Esme, nobody can agree whether what they did was a disaster or a miracle." The fact is -- he can’t. Part of him, the rational, responsible part knows that it was wrong and now, only more bad things will follow. More repressions, more punishment, even less freedom than they have now, however miniscule it is anyway. The other part is glad though. The other part craves vengeance, craves hostility and chaos and death...

Clarice, startlingly, doesn’t seem to notice. She grabs his arm. She hooks her hand over his elbow and stops him, right then and there. Grounds him.

"So what do we do?" she asks like he’s the competent leader he used to be, not a confused wreck.

He pulls back. Touch is... His senses are still too raw to take it, but this thing she does, it makes him change from within, it makes him...

Focus.

"We stay focused," he says, because this word is his mantra. It’s like magic, like self fulfilling prophecy. "We take down the Hound program."

"Do we have a game plan?"

"Not yet."

But we will, he thinks. Somehow. He will make that plan, because she tells him to, she expects him to, because she believes that he still can.

"All I know is I can’t lose any more friends," the words stumble out of his mouth.

He wasn't going to say them. He didn't even know he was thinking something like this but it's true and what's worse – she is among those friends now. He can't lose her.

He turns away from her and marches inside the HQ before he breaks down again, but, startlingly, he does not break down. He does not, because while she's found her way into his closest circle, he knows he's part of her world now as well. She wouldn't have come out to speak with him otherwise, she wouldn't have been so on point with her comfort attempts.

Clarice is different than the rest of the mutants in the Headquarters. She will never let herself get hurt. But if she considers someone a part of her pack, she won't let them get hurt either.

John knows he really is lucky to have found her.

* * *

.end

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading.
> 
> And if you feel like commenting, but are afraid that you'd bother me or something -- please, don't be afraid. Every comment, even the smallest one, is like a ray of sunshine. See, I write for myself, but writing and posting fanfiction is so much about interacting with other fans. Let's enjoy it together! After all, we have a long hiatus to survive... ;)


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